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Looper's Delight
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Hi all, I'm totally on board with what most of what Rick says. I have a member in one of my bands who attempted to use pre-recorded drum machine tracks. It was banned by me, since when he kicked on his drum machine: 1) The rhythm would be too dense - it jumped in sounding like a completely recorded song rather than like a collaborator. 2) The drum machine would be the only member of the band that was not playing live - it was like having a drummer who was completely ignoring the other musicians. I'd take it a step even further and say that many songs don't need to have all the "rock band" elements (rhythm, bass, chord progression). I agree with Mark that waiting for someone to build all the elements can be just as tedious as listening. I often feel like my solo sets combine elements of magic shows and dj sets. When I say magic shows, I'm not saying "the music is magic" - rather, I'm trying to create illusions that I'm not using loops. I do that by: --Using non-rhythmic loops. --If I use rhythmic loops, I don't loop in phrase repetitions of 4 for a 4/4 song. Instead, I'll loop on repetitions of 5 or 7, so that that the elements of the drum loop only fall in the same place every 4th loop repetition. --Playing occasional variations of the loop live. Say you have a drum loop. You could occasionally play an occasional bass drum or snare on top of the loop (not into the loop). Or even better, record 2 or 3 spare non-sequitur snares and/or kicks on a separate looping device that's cycling at a different interval. Voila - you have fills! Of course, whether that actually sounds good depends on the musical context. The DJ elements involve trying to keep an ear as to when a particular element gets too repetitive. That's a clue that it's time to take it out. One way I like is to shut off the loop and start playing that part live again, then transition it to something else. Or play something that complements it on a separate loop and take the first loop away, making a transition into a different song. Another thing I often do to mask the task of me building up a pattern is to quickly build a loop of something non-melodic/non-rhythmic for the audience to listen to while you gradually build up the elements on another channel. I usually try to imitate field recordings, loop it in a non-predictable point, then start building rhythmic/melodic elements on a different device. My ears got tired of many contexts of rhythmic looped music at about the same time that rave music started getting old for me. I need my variation. Strangely, I can listen to irregular loops (such as in the much of the music of Rapoon) for much longer periods of time before I get bored. It accesses a more passive portion of my attention span. -- Matt Davignon mattdavignon@gmail.com www.ribosomemusic.com Rigs! www.youtube.com/user/ribosomematt